Abrams tank still far from retirement.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana
• Position: Army Future Force - Cover Story

The battle-tested Abrams tank is poised to remain in service for at least 25 more years, or until the Army is certain that it has an adequate replacement.

The tank will stay in the Army, "until we are convinced that the Future Combat Systems is going to give us better lethality," said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker.

Abrams tanks will be upgraded not only so they can stay relevant for many more years but also so they can be used as test platforms for FCS, Schoomaker told National Defense fallowing a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.

The FCS network, which glues together 17 manned and unmanned systems, is scheduled to become operational between 2008 and 2014. The tank replacement was pushed to the latter stages of the program.

Some time between now and 2008, the Army will set up an experimental unit that will include Abrams tanks specifically assigned to lest FCS command-and-control network and communications systems, according to Army plans.

The tanks that were sent into battle in Iraq, mainly to the 3rd and 4th Infantry Divisions, have received a broader command-and-control capability, said Schoomaker.

"In those formations, they can control UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]; they can connect with joint fires; they can pull down intelligence from [the] national, division and corps level," he said.

The spiral development and implementation of FCS technology is going to benefit the tank fleet, said Col. Dennis Szydlosky, the Training and Doctrine Command's systems manager for Abrams at Fort Knox, Ky. "It is going to give us the opportunity to profit from new technologies," Szydlosky told National Defense.

"Anything that is relatively mature for an FCS manned vehicle we would consider to either improve capability or address shortcomings in the Abrams."

Of high interest is the active protection system, which is expected Io be included on the Stryker light armored vehicle, as well as on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, he said.

Another goal is to have better 360-degree vision capability for the remote weapon station on the tank. That would allow a soldier to fire the machine gun from inside the vehicle, instead of from the turret where he would be vulnerable, he explained.

"In order for the tank to stay relevant, it is going to have to be integrated into the FCS network," Szydlosky said. "We see tanks working with FCS in the future," he added.

Under the Army's new modularity concept, tank brigades will be restructured into units of action, said Maj. Ben Harris, the assistant Abrams systems manager at Fort Knox.

"The unit of action, instead of having three battalions, is going to have two task forces, and they are going to have two companies of Bradley [fighting vehicles] and two companies of tanks each," he said. "In the future, the unit of action will have 58 tanks. This is how much used to be in an old tank battalion, before we decided to go to 44 when we came out with" the M1A2 system enhancement package of the mid- 1990s.

Currently, a mechanized brigade has two infantry battalions and one tank battalion, while an armor brigade has two armor battalions and an infantry battalion, he explained. In addition, a mechanized brigade has 44 tanks, while an armor brigade has 88 tanks, he explained.

By the end of the decade, the Army is supposed to have two Abrams tank configurations--the upgraded to M1A2 system enhancement package (SEP) and the M1A1. A good number of the M1A1 ranks will have been rebuilt as part of the Abrams integrated management program, and some will still be the older variant, said Szydlosky.

The Abrams tank is no stranger to extensive makeovers. More than a decade ago, the initial analog M1Als transitioned to a digital version, the M1A2. However, by the mid 1990s, additional requirements placed a burden on the original M1A2 electronics. More memory, faster processing and better displays were needed to support the Army's...